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Thursday, 16 August 2018

The Festival of Quilts 2018

What a week!!! The Festival of Quilts, Europe's largest quilt show, never fails to deliver and this year was no exception! Having worked with Doughty's for the last eight years, building, working and then breaking down their five stands, I thought nothing could be harder...! Well, it was just as hard and I feel as completely shattered as ever! Even more annoying, I've come away realising I hadn't seen half of the show, sadly including the Jane Austen Coverlet, so sad!Anyway, as my first FoQ for Sewmotion, it was a great show, I met so many lovely existing customers, and those who know me from Instagram, so nice to put faces to names! And I also met lots of new customers who had such nice things to say about my products. Here is my stand...

This was also the first time I entered a quilt of my own into the show, Rainbow Rings. I've been showing sneaky peeks of this hand quilted EPP quilt for a while now, here is the grand reveal...

I had some lovely comments from the judges about my use of colour and design, though I definitely think next time I'll make sure I block it properly so it hangs better, oops!There have been so many pictures on FB and Instagram from the show, half of which I didn't even see, if it's not on the way to the loo, I tend to miss it - in a quiet moment I'll remember to go and have a look at something, then I'll get busy again and forget, I blame my addled brain! However, I did spot a few eye-catching beauties, including this miniature masterpiece from the amazing Phillippa Naylor, always to be found in the Winners Gallery! Circuit Training is machine and hand pieced, hand appliquéd and hand guided free-motion quilted - isn't it stunning!

Alexandra Kingswell had her Creations collection on show, in which she uses mathematical ratios found in nature and bright colour to create these very striking pieces, Let the Waters Teem! (left) and Let the Rainforest Sing! I love using geometry and bright colours in my own work which is probably why I was drawn to this wonderful wall of joy!

One quilt that caught my eye on the very first day, and many others by the sounds of it as it won Visitor's Choice, was Starburst by Elizabeth Wife - machine pieced and hand appliquéd, Elizabeth has then added hot fix crystals to the background to make the star really shine - I loved this so much!

Finally, a few more that took my fancy... Sue Faulkner's Sailing Home and Anna Orduna's 1977,

while this quilt by Ann Pill is a fantastic lesson in thrifty quilting, aptly named Hundred & Thousands of Scraps, Ann has hand sewn 9216 1.5" squares from her scraps alone to make this truly stunning quilt!So back to normal life.. well until the Great Northern Quilt Show in Harrogate in a couple of weeks' time. Back at Sewmotion HQ, I've finally had time to upload the two Christmas Table runner kits into the shop. This beautiful runner features partial seams and HSTs and comes in two variations - Makower's Silent Night and their Scandi Christmas - you can find out more here. I also plan to get all the patterns seen at the show up online soon, both printed and in PDF form.

6 comments:

It looks great and I suspect the blocking issue was down to time running out. A fabulous first quilt on show there for you though! How cool that you could tell customers about it when they started asking you questions. I missed so many of the quilts I've seen shown since and I spent ages looking at quilts!